


Daybreak

by seulgogi



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, it's sorta kinda a song fic, ive been informed the angst is a little difficult to get through so plz heed this heads up, literally got tired of looking at this so you WILL see some mistakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:20:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25477573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seulgogi/pseuds/seulgogi
Summary: Understanding love languages and coping mechanisms is tricky. And even harder to get used to.
Relationships: Park Sooyoung | Joy/Son Seungwan | Wendy
Comments: 20
Kudos: 51





	Daybreak

**Author's Note:**

> Hellooo! Here's a little something for the summertime (and also something to satisfy me while twitter user hourly wenjoy rests well and recuperates) hope you enjoy :))))  
> 

**_Fall_ **

There she was. On the other side of the glass, completely oblivious. She was ordering something off the to-go menu, she was probably in a rush catching the tail-end of a story. In movies or books, the protagonist always says that they can’t remember the exact moment they last saw a lost love and it's in that moment when they’re graced with the sight of them once again, they realize the beauty in the person that’s no longer theirs. They give shape to the ambiguous gap that had grown in their chest and they come to terms with the fact that perhaps they weren’t better off. Seungwan experiences the complete opposite of that. 

She can recall the last moment up until the last second, the last breath, the last blink since Sooyoung had wriggled her way out of her grasp. It’s unhealthy, the thought comes to her as bitter and ironic, how she hadn’t moved on. Not completely. 

Sooyoung directs the young cashier’s attention over to the danishes. It comes as no surprise that she gets apple out of all the fruit filling options they serve and when she gives a shy smile to the cashier after paying, Seungwan pretends she’s on the other end of it and not standing outside, blocking the entry into the place. 

She wants to go in- she doesn’t. She wants to talk to her, wants to hear Sooyoung’s voice in real life and not distorted from her phone’s speaker- she can’t, she doesn’t deserve it. Besides, talking had lost its hue anyway. She doesn’t trust her tongue to relay what her hands and therefore her love should've. 

She has to go or else she’ll be late for her meeting with her post-grad mentor. Someone clears their throat behind her and she side-steps out of the way, not giving herself the chance to take one last look at Sooyoung before speed walking to the bus stop. 

Every word that fell out of her mentor’s mouth bounced right back to the speaker. She couldn’t focus, not with her brain getting stuck on Sooyoung’s name. Repeating itself over and over with no reprieve. And when she returned to her apartment casting a glance at the second room in the unit that was now occupied by Seulgi instead of Sooyoung’s many, many forget-me-nots, she fell face-first onto her mattress. 

Logically she knows it was better for both of them. They weren’t really built to give one another the love they deserved in the way they needed it. But she still has a hard time rationalizing why that was any indication of them not being meant for each other. 

They could say the words, go through the motions. But ultimately that wasn’t enough. And all this lamenting and reminiscing did her no good. It got in the way of her studies, her social relations. 

There’s a knock at her door. She lets out a loud hum to let them know it’s okay to come in. 

“Seungwan-ah?” Seulgi pokes her head in. 

Seungwan silently rolls over to expose one squinted eye. 

“Is everything okay?”

“What gave it away?”

Seulgi fully steps in and closes the door behind her. It’s still light enough outside for Seungwan to see the faint paint stains on her friend’s shirt. “Well for one, I can smell your pheromones through the wall.” 

Seungwan buries her face back into the comforter. 

“And,” Seulgi continues. “You usually come straight to my room to raid my snack drawer after a long day.”

There’s a dip in the bed then weight added onto her lower back. The feeling of Seulgi’s slightly deep voice vibrating against her spine lets her know that it’s Seulgi’s head resting on top of her. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

She had become more attentive, more intentional over the last few months. Their laid back college bestie dynamic dropped for something a little more sincere and deep when Seungwan and Sooyoung ended their relationship. Seungwan is mature enough to acknowledge that it may be in part because of the way she had nearly driven herself into the ground during month 2 post-Sooyoung. 

Seungwan flips over. “I saw Sooyoung on the way to my meeting.” 

Seulgi waits a moment before replying. “Did she say something?” Quick and ready to defend. 

“No,” Seungwan sighs. If she had, maybe Seungwan would’ve skipped all the way home instead of dredging her way over. 

There was something in Sooyoung’s smile or it could’ve just been that voice in her head telling her so, but she got the wisp of a feeling that Sooyoung didn’t think about her at all anymore. Not even in contempt, she wouldn’t dare hope to be remembered fondly. A strange sense of happiness settled like a minuscule stabbing in her gut because that would mean Sooyoung wasn’t being hurt by her anymore. 

“Seul, do you ever think about getting back with Nayeon?”

“Mmmm no, not really. That kind of just...ran its course so I don’t think back on it much.”

“You don’t ever miss her?”

Seulgi coughed. “Uh yeah I guess? Sometimes. I think it’s just me missing being that close you know? But it’s whatever now. I’ve got Joohyun.”

“Right, right.”

She didn’t have a Joohyun but it’s probably just her missing the intimacy of having someone in her space all the time. Or her missing the way Sooyoung would always wait for her after her night classes or sit on the phone for hours not saying anything to each other during holidays that they were apart. All this was even before they had gotten together. 

“You’re not...thinking of getting back with her or something?” No matter Seulgi’s attempts at treading lightly, she always managed to drop the headache-inducing questions, preferring to get straight to the point as considerately as possible. 

“No, no,” she quickly saved. “My mind was just wandering. She gave me a bit of whiplash, to be honest. I was thinking, too, when I saw her today, about who she goes to.”

"In what way?"

Seungwan hummed thoughtfully. "Well, I have you to unload on but she doesn't unload. And the most she's ever dumped on me was about traffic and bad grades?" 

"Some people are private, Seungwan." 

"But we were in a relationship, Seulgi." It's nerve-wracking to wonder about what Sooyoung intentionally kept from her. Even worse it furthered the idea that Sooyoung had never really needed her, she only thought she did.

"Maybe she went to someone else," Seulgi suggested. It wouldn't be a far-off guess. Back when they were together, Sooyoung spent whatever remaining free time she had, when they weren't chopping up quality time, with a Yerim that Seungwan had never got around to meeting. That's probably who she went to when she was angry, sad, or frustrated at the world. She can't imagine what Yerim could have offered her that was better than the dynamic they shared. The thought waded in resentment and it brought her back to square one of feeling sorry for herself. 

"Yeah, maybe. Just thinking about it makes wanna swallow bricks." 

Seulgi sat up next to her in the now dark room. She reached out blindly and slapped around until she found Seungwan’s knee then patted it lightly. “I get that. Do you want me to leave you alone then?” 

Seungwan considered the company before deciding she’d rather not have Seulgi witness the way she was about to render herself pitiful. “Yeah, sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. I’ll be in my room and Joohyun will be over in a bit. Just tap on the wall if you need me.” She got up and opened the door, Seungwan’s room momentarily getting flooded with light. “But uh, try not to need me if you catch my drift.” 

Seungwan offered a weak laugh. 

Her solace resumed, her thoughts floated back to wondering  _ if  _ Sooyoung had indeed left Seungwan in the emotional development dust. She lifted her lower half off the bed to reach her phone in her back pocket. Her fingers tapped away methodically to pull up Sooyoung’s contact. 

It would be intrusive. Insensitive. All the words that start with “in”. And it’s not like she wanted to go crawling back to her nor as if Sooyoung was flaunting her newfound happiness. But as the weather became colder and she was approaching the time in her life that she would want to share all of the life-changing decisions with someone she loved so wholly, memories and reminiscing were slowly staking claim over her state of mind. And quite frankly she missed Sooyoung in all the ways that she was beautiful. In the dark she could make out the wooden box Seulgi had decorated for her that sat on her window sill. It’s clear walls granting her the sight of worn pieces of paper that made up its contents. There weren’t many but Seungwan had nearly memorized every word smudged on them in ink, including the nonsense. 

So, beautiful. Sooyoung was so beautiful and she had had her all to herself. 

\---

**_Sometime in Spring pt.1_ **

Sooyoung dropped herself over Seungwan’s legs. “Don’t get up, please. Let’s just stay here.” 

“Forever?” Seungwan entertained with a waggle of her eyebrows. 

Sooyoung trapped the skin of Seungwan’s knee between her teeth and bit down hard but quick. “Don’t patronize me.” She looked up at Seungwan and pouted. Time slowed down for them then. The middle of the semester left them little time to breathe let alone hold each other without exams looming over their heads. What makes matters worse, their schedules didn’t link up at all. When Seungwan would leave in the morning to either go to class or her internship, Sooyoung would still be knee-deep in REM tucked under a mountain of blankets, her late-day classes the furthest thing from her dream soaked mind. An absolute dead log to the world. She still stirred when Seungwan would place a kiss to her nest-like bedhead. 

And when Sooyoung returned at night, Seungwan would be well into her workload, too busy for Sooyoung’s Netflix pregame to a long night of studying(and it took a lot of pushing to get her to study at home). So, Sooyoung would be left to eat dinner at the table while Seungwan sat across from her, cracking down on equations then eventually leaving her to go to bed. The only time they really had together was during the few hours when the sun was preparing to return to its home in the sky, while the moon lingered to catch a glimpse of the burning star. Their bodies melded together, one heartbeat, huffs of sleep escaping their mouths and caressing each other by muscle memory. 

Sooyoung reached up, cupping a hand over her Christmas bulb-like cheeks. “You’re so pretty,” she admired. A flush covered Seungwan’s face in a slightly timid torrent. “Let’s not go and say we did.” 

Seungwan plucked Sooyoung’s hand from her face. She slid her fingers in the spaces between Sooyung’s slender digits. “It’s Jeongie’s birthday…” 

“So?” Sooyoung whined. “I barely know her and you’re only going because you were too nice to say no.” 

Seungwan inwardly winced. She pressed her lips against the soft skin of Sooyoung’s, they were a bit sticky from the lipgloss she had mostly licked off already, the pervasive scent of vanilla sneaking its way into her nose. Her mouth was warm and as Seungwan tried to pull away, Sooyoung trapped her lips so she wouldn’t move. Seungwan hummed. God, maybe she should just call Seulgi and tell her not to keep an eye out for them. But those pesky social conventions created something reminiscent of a headache for her. She pushed through it. 

“Mmm. Mm. Sooyoung. We have to get up.” 

Sooyoung only responded by grabbing a fistful of Seungwan’s collar and moving her lips with more purpose. A well maneuvered slow drag of her tongue against Seungwan’s pulled a juvenile giggle out of her. Seungwan’s heart rate was beginning to pick up and the ticking of the clock on the wall served as a reminder that if she didn’t let up now her lungs would give out. And so would her will. 

“Baby,” she mumbled against Sooyoung’s skillful mouth. “Love, please.” 

Sooyoung immediately retreated with a huff, going limp in Seungwan’s lap. “Just say you hate me.” 

A pang ignited in Seungwan’s chest at the light joke. She was sure there wasn’t any true weight or indignation to it. Or at least any that was cause for concern. But every night she had to leave a dinner plate for Sooyoung in the microwave and every weekend she had to turn down Sooyoung’s requests to go out for fresh air and a change of scenery, she took Sooyoung’s dejected jokes with the biggest grain of salt she could bear. It felt too on the nose to be insincere. 

“Hey,” Sooyoung gently called out catching the way Seungwan was drifting off. She touched a single finger between Seungwan’s eyebrows. “Don’t go there.” 

Seungwan shook her head lightly. “We really should go. We’ll be late but it’s better than not showing up at all.” 

“I guess…” Sooyoung pushed herself out of Seungwan’s lap to sit next to her on the bed. A plaid shirt fell onto the floor with the movement. Sooyoung may or may not be responsible for the small mess of clothes strewn about. She had raided Seungwan’s wardrobe wanting to find the perfect outfit so that her girlfriend would match with her as best as possible. Another probably intentional reason for their present tardiness. 

As if on cue, Seungwan’s phone vibrated on the nightstand with a call from Seulgi. 

“Hellooo,” she answered in English. 

“Yah, Seungwan-ah, are you guys on the way?” The faint sound of a top 40 song battled against Seulgi’s shouting in the phone speaker. She spoke with the speed of her trademark child-like slurring. It was always just fast enough to be barely comprehensible but as Seungwan observed, women found it endearing. She could sort of see why when, on the more rough side, Sooyoung’s serrated speech slipped up in the heat of passion from time to time. 

“Yeah, Seul. We’re leaving now.” Seungwan could see Sooyoung cross her arms, petulant, out of the corner of her eye as she gathered the essentials they would need for the night. They could make it up to each other some other time. 

When they arrived at the metropolitan apartment, Sooyoung, with an attached Seungwan, made a beeline for the area designated for drinks. There weren't many people attending, definitely, nowhere near the largest party Seungwan had ever been to, but enough to have her wanting to hang back and avoid a huge load of social interaction. She wasn’t in the mood for forcing laughter and worrying if it came off  _ too  _ forced. But of course, in the presence of her girlfriend, she was subject to a litany of people wanting to take hold of at least a fraction of Sooyoung’s interest. She was as convivial as she was intelligent. She had a mastery of social cues and being likable that astonished Seungwan. Whether it was to shoot the shit about nothing in particular or to dissect court cases or notorious reports done by world-renowned journalists, there was always a meager gathering around Sooyoung of lively listeners. She was like a modern-day Homer if he was a journalism student that could pull off a skater skirt in 2020. Be that as it may, she didn’t prescribe to the heteronomative notion that one should feel a sense of pride in their significant other in a show boaty way. 

But her girlfriend is Park Sooyoung. And sometimes she felt like a happy trophy wife. 

People were able to experience a taste of the blessing she’d been granted and Seungwan got to listen in on her girlfriend’s passion wrought rants while getting blasted. It was a win on all fronts and it made parties easier. 

Tonight though, the alcohol coated her tongue in guilt. Sooyoung didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be at home, comically curled into Seungwan who was at least five inches shorter than herself. But Seungwan couldn’t for one night set aside her penchant for not disappointing someone who was vaguely her friend. 

“No, that verdict was complete and utter bullshit,” Sooyoung roared. “Everyone knows that mothers of color are always villainized in the justice system. Remember when that white lady left her kid in a car - windows up - for like two whole hours while she went dress shopping? She needs to be hanged and quartered.” 

Seungwan made a gasp of disapproval and smacked Sooyoung’s thigh. 

“Relax. I’m joking.”  _ No, I’m not  _ she mouthed to her audience. Sooyoung tipped her head back to finish off what was left in her solo cup. 

“You want a refill, babe?” 

Sooyoung hopped up from Seungwan’s lap. “Love you!” 

Seungwan topped off their drinks at the keg. She looked around at all the attendees. Just the sight was draining her desire to be there. She had no idea where the girl of the hour was. There were at least 6 articles open on her laptop that have only been extremely briskly skimmed. Even if she wanted to dedicate the night to relaxing and pleasing her girlfriend, she couldn’t. Cake cutting hour needed to come quickly before she resolved to join one of the potted plants in a corner to read about super germs. 

She cast her eyes over to the hallway, a sudden yellow light capturing her attention, that presumably led to the bedroom and the bathroom. She caught sight of a wobbling Seulgi exiting the latter making poor work of retucking her shirt. A girl, whose state was an exact mirror of Seulgi’s, followed behind her. She fretted with her own dark tresses and wiped away any remaining smudged lipstick stains around her mouth. Seulgi turned around and pulled the petite girl in, both hands resting against her neck, for a disgusting PG13 recap of what Seungwan assumed just went down in the bathroom. With swiftness, Seulgi released the girl from the kiss and left her standing there blinking and stunned. 

“Seul!" 

Seulgi made her way over, dropping her mask of suave and enchanting and trading it for the dopey smile Seungwan was glad to see replacing the image that was now burned into her brain. “You found something to occupy yourself in the meantime it seems.” 

Seulgi chuckled though it was laced with neither embarrassment nor shame. “Where’s Joy?” 

Seungwan amusedly rolled her eyes. “Oh no she’s got you on that too?” 

Seulgi reached behind her to snag a beer off the counter and cracked it open. “Hey, it’s fun. I don’t get it, but it’s fun.” 

The English name sounded a bit clumsy coming out of Seulgi’s mouth but Seungwan couldn’t lie, her girlfriend chose a cute pseudonym for herself. 

“Don’t get so fond of it. I’m sure it’ll pass.” Seungwan had encouraged Sooyoung to dabble in the creative arts as an outlet of sorts. If she couldn’t bring Sooyoung much comfort in the flesh, she wanted her to at least have this. Sooyoung originally found it silly and a mockery of her technical skills but she caved and submitted some work to the local rec center’s literary journal under the condition that she didn’t have to use her real name. Seungwan didn’t care how she did it, just as long as it could do what she couldn’t. Seulgi had jokingly told her that it was the equivalent of sticking a kid in front of a TV so they'd leave you alone. Seungwan didn't find that very funny but it was enough for a while until she began to catch glimpses of Sooyoung’s discontent resurfacing. 

Seungwan pointed toward the crowd of people that swallowed Sooyoung who was in the middle of playing flip cup. “She’s over there. I was just topping us off.” She made a move to rejoin her animated girlfriend but found herself reluctant to do so. 

“You good, Wan?” 

Seungwan squeaked. “Huh? Yeah, I’m good. Great.” She grinned at Seulgi but when she looked back at Sooyoung the alcohol she had been drinking threatened to make a reappearance. “I’m the worst person ever…” 

“And it snows in winter.” 

She was taken out of her slowly developing pity party at the nonsense that left Seulgi’s mouth. “What?” 

Seulgi chugged the rest of her beer. “My bad, I thought we were just listing facts.”

Seungwan elbowed her in the stomach as best she could.

“You guys get in a fight or something?” 

Seungwan sighed and sloshed the beer around in one of the cups. “I wish. Then I could do something about how poopy I feel.” 

Seulgi bopped along to the hip-hop song playing from the Bluetooth speaker. “Oh yeah? How come?” She sounded distracted but Seungwan knew her attention just worked that way. Her friend’s brain was in a constant state of multitasking. It seemed rude to strangers but Seungwan welcomed it because it took some of the pressure off of being vulnerable if she convinced herself that Seulgi was only half-listening. 

Seungwan looked over at Sooyoung again, a bitter smile hanging flatly on her face. “Sooyoung wanted to stay in tonight. But I dragged her out here. You should’ve seen her face, Seul. I’ve just been so busy lately and the one night we’re both free, we’re here. No offense to Jeong.” 

Seulgi hummed and clapped Seungwan on the shoulder. “So what you’re saying is,” Seulgi pursed her lips. 

“What’s that look, I don’t like that look.” 

“You’ve been neglecting booty duty.” 

Seungwan flinched and moved out of her grasp. 

“Jesus, Seulgi-” 

“Heard that before.” 

“Can you not be a frat boy for like five seconds?” 

Seungwan made a show of cleaning out her ears. Seulgi was too drunk to say anything helpful or meaningful. And she was probably still thinking about that girl from the bathroom. So she resigned to internally rolling around in self-pity. Her brain rattled trying to think of the things she brought into her relationship with Sooyoung. If she were being honest, the seed of this thought hadn’t been planted tonight but all those months ago when she was rescued by an extremely tall girl, who liked to brag about her height and 20/20 vision, that was able to reach the anthro textbook that she had been incapable of retrieving herself. 

“I’m going back to my girlfriend.” She emptied her cup then refilled it before returning to Sooyoung’s side. She wrapped her arms around her much like a koala clinging to a eucalyptus tree while being cautious of the drinks in her hands. “This is for you.” 

Sooyoung took the drink still engrossed with her game and gave a distracted thanks. 

How is it, Seungwan wondered, that Sooyoung despite initially not wanting to go to a party and engage in the bothersome work of socializing, still found herself making the most of it. Seungwan abandoned her cup and set it down on the floor, finding better use of her hands to hold onto Sooyoung without obstruction. She linked her hands around Sooyoung’s torso, pressing her face into the fabric of Sooyoung’s cotton T-shirt, a navy blue version of the pale green one she sported. In between turns, Sooyoung tapped her fingers along Seungwan’s ring clad interlocked ones. It was uncomfortably hot in the room even with the windows open and usually, Seungwan wouldn’t initiate such in your face physical affection. It always made her feel like people were staring. Even at home. But she ignored every nerve in her head telling her not to give up her own comfort, reminding her of how clammy her hands were getting, and how her shirt was beginning to stick to her skin. She couldn’t pull Sooyoung any closer yet she tried to anyway. 

“Wannie, I can’t breathe!” Sooyoung yelled over the music that had gotten louder all of a sudden. The bodies around them were drawing in as the party went on. Sooyoung patted Seungwan’s vice grip requesting her to let go or at least loosen up. Seungwan only attempted to bury herself further. 

“You’re too good to me,” Seungwan mumbled into her back. She could barely make out the muffled “what?” Sooyoung threw at her. 

They stayed like that until Sooyoung’s game ended (she won, of course) and instead of letting go, Seungwan fell into the chair behind them pulling Sooyoung back into her lap. 

Sooyoung leaned back into Seungwan’s embrace. “You’re in a  _ mood _ , what’s up with you?” 

This wasn’t the time nor place for her to unearth from the self-deprecating hole she dug herself into. She nuzzled into Sooyoung’s neck and left a light kiss behind her ear. “Nothing! If you want, I can stop.” She dropped her arms like dead weight and attempted to slither out from underneath Sooyoung. 

Sooyoung cackled and pulled at her arms to get her to stop. “No, no by all means. It feels good to be on the receiving end.” 

Like a mallet to the chest.

Sooyoung secured Seungwan’s arms back around her body. Twice in one night Seungwan felt dreadfully inadequate. Sooyoung in no fault of her own kept dredging up a growing insecurity of Seungwan’s. Indirect wasn’t a method Sooyoung preferred, so Seungwan knew she wasn’t being attacked on purpose. Despite this knowledge, the urge to leave grew fervently while they remained. 

“Can I kiss you?” 

Sooyoung snorted at the request. “I think we’re beyond the point of asking but it’s nice to know you’re still a gentleman.”

“And they say chivalry is dead.”

She twisted awkwardly so they could bring their lips together. Seungwan held onto her in their uncomfortable position. She couldn’t exactly express herself now so she hoped Sooyoung would feel her sincerity in the way she explored her mouth. It felt out of character but she tried her hand at it anyway. 

“My, my” Sooyoung pulled back. “Do we need to go to birthday parties more often?”

Sooyoung’s arduous breathing brought Seungwan’s mind back to Seulgi’s crass observation. Maybe Frat Boy was onto something. Maybe she was mistaking arousal for guilt as the two tended to mingle in the acid of her stomach. 

Sooyoung's features were blurred due to the low light leaking from the few lamps set up in the living area. Seungwan didn’t really need the help of the light anyway. It seemed inappropriate to think so given their situation, but her girlfriend really was beautiful and she didn’t need the gift of vision to say so. Seungwan semi-blindly traced an invisible line across Sooyoung’s face. A delicate finger grazed around her cute but seemingly perpetually puffy eyes. Her finger rounded her prominent cheekbones, poking lightly. She switched fingers and let her thumb outline Sooyoung’s plump lips that were a little dry from her habit of constantly licking them. Seungwan fixated there. Sooyoung’s mouth that couldn’t tell a lie nor fashion a truth that was easier to swallow for others. Though what Sooyoung's many admirers don't know is that she is a reserved person, deceivingly so. It took Seungwan quite some time to get used to it. And getting used to it meant she couldn’t let it eat her alive when she suspected there was something off about Sooyoung despite her not saying so. There were so many times and so many arguments caused by Seungwan’s need for transparency and Sooyoung’s defensive reservation.

“You having fun there, Ace?” 

Her concerns weren't in the business of giving way to her better judgment. Why were they here? Sooyoung wanted to be home. So Seungwan should take her home. She looked around for Seulgi to tell her to let Jeongyeon know that something had come up and they needed to head out early. 

Seulgi was otherwise preoccupied. Seungwan spotted her pushing that bathroom girl up against a wall, wreaking havoc on her neck. 

“True love lives on in the youth,” Sooyoung joked having followed Seungwan’s gaze. 

***

Sooyoung fell back onto Seungwan's bed. “We didn’t even get cake…” 

Seungwan chuckled from the doorway. “I’ll buy you a cake. Better yet, I’ll make you one.”

Sooyoung rolled over on her side and held her head up with her hand. “This is why I keep you around. You treat me so swell.” 

Seungwan gulped. She was really, really undeserving of Sooyoung. She leaned against the doorframe. “Babe, you would tell me if you were upset, right? With me I mean.” Baby barf, not yet the full onslaught of word vomit. 

Sooyoung screwed up her eyebrows. “Of course. What’s this about?” 

Seungwan waved her off. “Nothing, nothing.” She swallowed it down. She walked over to the bed and gently pushed Sooyoung onto her back. Sooyoung steadied her as she climbed onto her lap. 

“It’s gotta be something. You brought it up. Did you do something?” She rubbed little circles on her hip bone. 

Seungwan hushed her with a finger to her lips. “No one did anything. I was just...thinking. Forget I even asked.” 

Seungwan blinked the thought away and dove in hot with a kiss before Sooyoung could question her further. The barely-there taste of beer remained in her mouth but it was mostly overpowered by the gum Sooyoung had been chewing on the way back home. It left a sweet taste on Seungwan’s tongue but she was certain that it was just pure Sooyoung. 

A part of her didn’t allow for full immersion into the moment. It didn’t feel right to be enjoying Sooyoung in this way to curb her own guilt when Sooyoung has been silently putting up with Seungwan’s self-centered behavior. Fighting back and forth with her libido and her ethics was like several electrifying shocks to the brain. Or maybe that was just Sooyoung’s fingers digging into the skin of her waist. It was like the mental manifestation of debating if you should get up to pee during commercials without really knowing when the commercials would end. It’s a trivial thought but that’s as much as she can manage while doling out her own mental punishment. Without realizing, their kisses had become a little wet because she had at some point started crying. 

Sooyoung pulled out of their kiss, wiping away the teardrops that managed to slide onto her face. “Hey, what’s wrong?” She took Seungwan’s face in her hands. “Was I getting too rough? You have to tell me, you know I do it without thinking sometimes.” 

“No,” Seungwan choked out, frustrated with herself more so than Sooyoung’s inference. “Why do you a-always think it’s you.” 

Sometimes it takes the most inane questions to trigger the projectile words that stab holes in the emotional pipes. 

She peeled Sooyoung’s hands from her cheeks and hiccuped like a newborn puppy. “The party - and you didn’t wanna go. And I never - we never eat together anymore. There’s always work or I’m tired. I don’t wanna be tired. I  _ miss  _ you. I-” She was about to tear a hole in Sooyoung’s shirt with the way she was frantically grasping at it. 

“Okay, okay. No more keggers for you, it’s too much apparently.” Sooyoung sat up and grabbed tissues from Seungwan’s nightstand to dab away her tears. 

Seungwan sulked even harder. “It’s not funny.” 

Sooyoung pulled her head into her chest and rubbed her back, giving her a moment to calm down. Seungwan whimpered a bit more and tried to use as many tissues as possible to get the gross wetness off her face so it wouldn’t ruin Sooyoung’s shirt. Her cries eventually leveled out to minor sniffles. 

“Are you good now?” Sooyoung asked softly, still massaging the small circles. Seungwan nodded her head. 

“Where’d that come from? Do you wanna talk about it or leave it with the tissues in the trash?” 

Seungwan whipped her head out of Sooyoung’s hold, redness still splayed out over the designated crying areas of her face, and her eyes still very watery. “I should be asking  _ you  _ that.”

Sooyoung cocked her head to the side. “Me? What’d I do?”

Seungwan desperately rubbed her eyes so she could see clearly again. “You don’t tell me stuff. Not the stuff that really bothers you anyway. And I know you’ve been unhappy lately.” She climbed out of Sooyoung’s lap and sat with her legs folded underneath her. 

Sooyoung stared at the floral pattern of Seungwan’s quilt so as not to meet her eyes. 

“See. And I know you’re genuinely upset I chose the party over you. Sooyoungie,” Seungwan rasped out. The tears had immensely dried her throat. 

“You put up with so much of my shit. Sacrificing god knows what for my sake. And I just don’t get why. How am I supposed to fix it if you don’t tell me why?”

Sooyoung reached for Seungwan’s hands, perhaps struck by Seungwan’s callout, she could never tell for sure, but retracted before making contact. She poured a generous amount of Seungwan’s bedside hand sanitizer into her hands before holding them. “Listen, you didn’t do anything. And yeah maybe I should speak up when I’m bothered by things. It’s...hard sometimes. But if I’ve held onto something it was less so because of what you did and more of the situation itself.”

Seungwan nodded, still unbelieving. Not entirely at least. She couldn’t figure out what Sooyoung meant by it being hard or why that was an explanation for her enduring as much as she does but she at least acknowledged Seungwan’s concern. And that was an accomplishment. 

She threw herself into Sooyoung’s arms, tears threatening to spill over again. She wishes she wasn’t such a big crier. She hardly ever did it, Sooyoung was the crier in their relationship. She cried over senseless things all the time. And because Seungwan didn’t let herself cry very often, when she did it became almost impossible to stop. The weight of the prolonged sob fest from holding it back in every instance fell upon her. She almost forgot why she was crying, to begin with. 

Sooyoung cooed and rocked Seungwan side to side. She shifted a bit uncomfortably but Seungwan was oblivious, too concerned with hurrying up and getting all the tears out so she could go another 6 months at least. With the tears coming out of her she could do away with any guilt or nasty feeling, forget it and move on. 

“Uh, Wannie. I know you’re having a moment but you’re pressing onto some,” she cleared her throat in between words, “sensitive areas. And I’m still a bit, you know, from earlier.”

Seungwan leaned back, noticing that her knee had been poorly placed. She looked up at Sooyoung to apologize and was met with a kind of flush adorning Sooyoung’s face. A look that she had long since stored among her favorites. It was a reminder that her girlfriend was more like Hercules rather than a full-blown god. Although. Gods were not immune to temptation. 

Sooyoung’s bottom lip had nearly lost all color with how hard it was being bitten down on. Her pupils were blown to oblivion presenting Seungwan with a clear shot of herself in her girlfriend’s eyes. 

“Oh.” The recollection of them missing each other plows into the coil in her gut like a madman driving an 18-wheeler. If she couldn't fix any of the things that Sooyoung had been holding onto, her girlfriend's desire was something she could. 

She slowly closes the idle space that separates them. And for some reason, it causes Sooyoung to giggle. She catches it between her lips. Sooyoung takes the lead this time. She grasps at her sides and does away with the green hindrance. Sooyoung’s mouth finds purchase on Seungwan’s neck and it brings out something guttural in her. 

“Someone’s having fun,” Sooyoung quips. 

Seungwan sighs into Sooyoung’s hold. “No superhero side comments, please. Your focus is needed -  _ uh  _ \- elsewhere.”

“Oh don’t you worry about my focus. I’ve got a detailed itinerary,” Sooyoung fully lays her out on her back. “And I plan to get through all of it.”

Sooyoung covers the expanse of Seungwan’s torso in quick, hot kisses choosing not to linger too long in one spot. 

“I must’ve missed you more than I realized.” One of Seungwan’s hands tangles itself in the thicket that is Sooyoung’s hair. “That should  _ not  _ have worked on me.”

What better way was there for them to end a day that had been plagued by the thought of being so physically present and emotionally distant than to revel in each other’s touch. They hadn’t fully fleshed out the main cause of discord but they had broken into it. Besides they hadn’t had sex in weeks. Seungwan could just for the night project a metaphor onto it. But she would rather think of it later when she’s not whining for Sooyoung to put her sinful tongue to good use. 

Painfully slow. Sooyoung may have been covering a large area. But she was making such slow work of it. The trails her mouth left behind were going cold and as much as Seungwan wanted to leave Sooyoung to do what she does best, she wanted to get moving so she could put some action to her short apology. 

She pulled Sooyoung up by the chin, making her abandon the love bites she was planting across her chest and kissed her. “I love you.”

Sooyoung grinned. “I know. I love you, too.”

It was like Sooyoung was in her head. She was merely reacting to the way Sooyoung was reacting to her touch. It was different. She kissed her again. “I love you.” She repeated the sentiment everywhere she left a kiss. Sooyoung’s forehead. Both of her cheeks. The hollow of her throat. She pulled the collar of her shirt down to leave an “I love you” on her collar bone then did away with the shirt completely and left one where her bra was previously hooked in the front. Sooyoung’s breath hitched. 

Seungwan flipped them over and lowered herself so she could press a kiss just above Sooyoung’s navel. “I really, really love you.” She slightly tugged down the waistband of Sooyoung’s jeans revealing where the button had left a pinkish imprint on her supple skin. 

She pressed her lips deeply onto the spot, the action eliciting a heavy sigh and subtle squirming from Sooyoung so she kissed it again and added a harsh bite that would turn the pink tone to a darker rouge later on. Seungwan had read and heard about the figurative language surrounding the way arousal presented itself in physical reactions. She knows all about the butterflies and the tingles. But she swears she can feel Sooyoung's body thrumming against her lips. It was like a rushing river - no- an electric current. Whatever it was, it was addictive. The sensation was glossing a haze over her brain and her train of thought wandered. She thought about how soft Sooyoung felt, how she had her shuddering with simple touches and kisses, and- no now was not the time to consider if she had latent cannibalistic tendencies. 

“I know you love me, baby.” Sooyoung practically mewled. “But maybe you should  _ really  _ show me now."

\---

**_Mid- Summer_ **

As it goes, Seungwan fell victim to predictability and predicament. 

Time was lost to her again. She got caught up in diseases, people who discovered these diseases, cures, possible disease-related hypotheticals. It was like the sterile scent of laboratory cleaning supplies was now among the many things that made up her everyday scent and the antibacterial precautions she wore like another layer of skin. She had been given the opportunity to do crucial work with one of the university’s research teams and it was becoming a habit to simply sleep upright like a horse for a hot minute before getting back to work. There was a lot on her plate at the moment. 

But she’s learned her lesson. Sort of. She knew better than to let her school work drown out the other aspects of her life. It begged, and pleaded, and screamed at her to just run a few more tests and add a few more pages to her report. Despite the efforts that the two of them put in, that guilt that had manifested in her psyche evolved into a distance that aimed to keep her and Sooyoung apart. And that is why Seungwan found herself sprinting to the quad sometime after 10; a good hour after she promised Sooyoung she would meet her for takeout. 

“Sooyoung-ah!” She was bundled up near a fountain, only having a fur-lined jean jacket she borrowed from Seungwan months ago to keep her warm. Her throat dried up with an apology she had been preparing on her way over. 

Sooyoung, her sweet Sooyoung, still had it in her to smile at the appearance of her girlfriend. She comes to a stop and folds over on her knees. “I am  _ so  _ sorry. We were making great time. But then Kihyun’s math was apparently off - I told him to let  _ me  _ do it in the first place - and so we had to start over and get everything ready for tomorrow so we can just crack right into the project.” She stood upright, letting out one giant exhale. “But I’m here now.” 

Seungwan held out a hand for Sooyoung to take and despite seeming a bit tense, she took it. Their fingers came together in a tight lattice. Seungwan was willing to risk the soreness from working with her hands all day lasting for a little while longer. She took her to a chicken place and got her the spicy kind just as she liked. Sooyoung was lost in her food, people watching, and resting lazily against Seungwan’s arm so Seungwan saw the opportunity to get some remote editing in while spending time with Sooyoung. 

She took out her phone opening her email to look over some suggestions and edits the leading researcher, a.k.a one of her favorite professors, had left on the work she had done so far. She shifted her posture a bit to make use of both of her hands effectively interrupting Sooyoung’s leisure. She felt Sooyoung sit up straight, thankful for the return of her shoulder. It only lasted a moment before Sooyoung absently wrapped a hand around her wrist. 

“Give me just one second, love. Let me just finish this…” she trailed off. Her side was hit with a wave of cold that slipped under her thin sweater at Sooyoung’s reluctant absence. It was just jarring enough to take her mind off the quick task she needed to fulfill. “Why don’t you tell me about your day?” 

Sooyoung poked around her takeout. “It was pretty uneventful. Just class and other stuff…” 

“Uh-huh. Did you get that stuff for the apartment?”

“The toilet paper? Yeah.” 

Seungwan wasn’t too concerned with focusing on one thing at a time. She could be fully engaged with Sooyoung while finishing up some work. They would have all the time in the world to focus on each other and nothing else on the walk back, as they cleaned up, and even as they slowly swam into slumber. Sooyoung made it easy like that. 

“You know,” Seungwan said, putting her phone down and taking Sooyoung’s hands into her lap. They were warm to the touch. “They’re picking out candidates for the assistantship soon. And Dr. Kwon said I have a pretty good chance of snagging it.” 

Sooyoung’s eyebrows shot up, encouraging Seungwan to continue. “It’s gonna take more long nights, unfortunately, but if I do well enough here I could be looking at an eventual permanent spot. Not to think of the money, we could finally replace that old table.” 

Sooyoung has a particularly soft smile that Seungwan rarely sees displayed for anyone else, mainly because what follows the charming smile are the words “Wannie, I’m so proud of you.” and as far as Seungwan knows, she’s the only “Wannie” in Sooyoung’s life. She waited eagerly for the words to leave Sooyoung’s mouth. She always did admire the comfort and sincerity riding in the sentiments Sooyoung directed to her. Not to the extent of being doted on but it came as the only thing that made all of her work worth the stress. That and the gratification that comes with having a career that allows her to put some healing out into the universe. 

“They’d be stupid not to give it to you. You’ve been putting in so much, covering for Kihyun all the time and even in your own projects.” She squished Seungwan’s cheeks, scrunching up her face in a way that had Seungwan hoping that no one was paying them any mind. “That spot is yours. And I’m proud of you.” 

She tried her best at a thankful smile with what little ability she had. The admiration briefly slipped from Sooyoung’s face and if Seungwan hadn’t been stuck in her position she would’ve missed how out of place it seemed in the wholesome moment. Sooyoung’s mouth fixed like it was on the verge of spilling whatever thought had crossed her mind but when she spoke she simply asked if they could go home. 

It gave her a bad feeling in her stomach like when she dumbly thinks that the one time she decides to give the food court ready-to-go sandwiches the benefit of the doubt but she ends up with regret gurgling in her stomach and an email complaint falling out of her hands. It felt like she should ask Sooyoung about it but the last time that happened, the whole dynamic of their relationship had to be remodeled. At this point trying to tell the difference between paranoia and general anxiety was nearly impossible. She opted to let it be, just for the night. If she felt it again, she would definitely speak up. 

Seungwan woke up to unprecedented rain the next morning. The icky feeling permeated the lining of her gut all night and not even having Sooyoung stay up with her while she poured over her project helped in keeping it at bay. 

Groggy and in dire need to do a deep detox, she stalked herself out of their shared bedroom and into the living room where Sooyoung sat at the table, hovering above a steaming mug. 

Seungwan pointed in the direction of the cracked balcony door that was letting in the low pounding of the rain. “We needed that,” she pointed out. “You’re up early. Interviews?” 

Sooyoung was stiff, so the shake of her head appeared odd as if her head was being turned by some sadistic imaginary giant baby trying to twist her head off like a doll’s. She stayed like that the entire time it took Seungwan to make a cup of tea for herself. 

Seungwan scraped back the chair across from her knowing that she was supposed to wait for Sooyoung to say whatever was on her mind. Her quietness wasn’t uncharacteristic but it rubbed Seungwan the wrong way. She didn’t bother with her tea. The steam just traveled up her skin and fogged up the lenses of her glasses. If anything the abandoned tea helped. 

Seungwan noted three different dings of the elevator before Sooyoung braved forth and spat it out. 

“Seungwan, I’m not...happy.”

The whiplash hit her so hard the most she could come up with was an insensitive “still?”

It must have made it a little easier for Sooyoung to express her thoughts. “Yes. Still. And I think you’re not happy either.”

Seungwan pulled on the tab hanging on the rim of the mug. With her other hand, she massaged her belly. “I don’t know if I agree with that.”

“With me being unhappy?”

“With you deciding that I am.” She pushed her mug to the side and braced herself on the edge of the table. “Wait, wait. Back up. Where is this coming from?” It felt like deja vu. Only the roles were reversed. Of course, Sooyoung was a much stronger person than Seungwan and she wasn’t drooling and leaking from her eyes all over the place. 

Sooyoung seemed to be all out of sighs. The thought of Sooyoung having had this prepared for some time sat like bile in the back of her throat. 

“Well,” Sooyoung began. “We tried to work it out and even though we’re both making changes it still feels like I’m the only one carrying the weight.” 

Wrong. Sooyoung was wrong. Seungwan wanted to shoot out of her seat and defend herself. She wanted to state her case, provide proof and witnesses but she couldn’t. The truth in Sooyoung’s words, that she had been narrowly escaping from, kept her planted in her seat. “So, what is it exactly that I’m doing wrong? I mean, I’ve held back some, and I’ve tried being more considerate.” The question “ _ What about me isn’t good enough?”  _ was trapped behind Seungwan’s tongue and she knew that Sooyoung could see it hiding there because, with every second tacked on to this moment, she could see the pity slowly flooding into Sooyoung’s eyes. 

“See, that’s one of the problems, Seungwan. You always think that I have something against you.”

Seungwan holds onto the stabbing feeling that came with the acknowledgment of there being more than one issue that had gone unnoticed by her. “Isn’t that what this is, though? You’re bringing a complaint to me so I can fix something.”

Sooyoung discreetly opened and closed her fist. “No. That’s not what this is but how you’re feeling right now, that defensiveness, is a sign that I shouldn’t be deterred.” 

“From what?” 

Sooyoung blinked. She said that she shouldn’t feel deterred but the reluctance in the way her mouth struggled to form the next set of words made it clear as day what she was suggesting. “Oh.” 

Seungwan didn’t cry. She didn’t beg or plead. She didn’t try to block the door so Sooyoung couldn’t escape. She didn’t cry when they decided that day to take a break until Seungwan could focus on them as much as she focused on her career. That was what Sooyoung had stated as her reason for leaving. She didn’t bawl, although it felt like her chest was cracking into disjunct pieces when Sooyoung told her that she felt unloved and secondary. 

She silently helped Sooyoung move a few things to the empty room next to the one they used to share. She civilly sat down with Sooyoung and helped her with finding new living accommodations. And even when they found a new place for her some 14 days later she still didn’t give in. They hugged. Departed. And didn’t speak much only to check in every now and then. 

She was still trying to figure it all out. She swore that in the time they had built their relationship, that she loved Sooyoung in the ways she knew how and thought that it would be enough. She couldn’t quite wrap her mind around how Sooyoung could want to leave even if she still felt as strongly for her. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to stick around and wait it out? One would have to be  _ in  _ the relationship in order to fix it, right?

Going to bed didn’t feel right. Waking up and having to eat breakfast and drink tea made by her own hands just wasn’t as satisfying, she found herself snacking more often throughout the day because what was the point in eating anything homemade if it didn’t fill her up as it should? 

Seulgi was looking for a new place to live, somewhere closer to the social hubs. Seungwan immediately opened the spare room up hoping that the presence of a friend would make all the confusion and dumbfoundedness quiet down. And it did, to her misfortune. Two months after Sooyoung had moved out and it finally clicked in the middle of some drama Seulgi sat her down to watch. 

All the regret and clarity drained out of her in heavy, well-kept tears. It was like her tear ducts sucked up all the emotions and epiphanies she had been blind to like ticks and everything burst out when she realized that Sooyoung had been hurting in a way that couldn’t be solved with quick fix-its. Her chest wracking with silent sobs while Seulgi pointed out a particularly funny scene coming up, she thought of calling Sooyoung right then all distraught and emotional. When she started frantically patting around for her phone, Seulgi’s attention was caught and she was prevented from going anywhere or doing anything until she calmed down. 

She spent a couple more weeks like that as if she was in mourning. She would’ve breached three but Seulgi had had enough. One night in August while she was making pasta and sulking Seulgi picked a wet noodle out of the pot and threw it at her forehead. 

“Yah, if I have to eat one more meal soaked in tears I’m leaving you to make the rent for yourself.” 

Seungwan wiped her face with the back of her hand and moved to strain the noodles. “You could always feed yourself.” 

Seulgi snorted. “Why would I do that, when you’re... mostly functioning.” 

Seungwan made up a plate for both of them and took them to the table. What else was there for Seungwan to do but sulk? She had this new knowledge and a deeper understanding of the person that was once her girlfriend but she couldn’t do anything about it. Sooyoung wanted her space and suggested that Seungwan take time to herself as well. 

“Seriously, Wan, you can’t keep pouting around like this. The lamenting and the sighing. You’re messing with the vibes.” 

Seungwan fervently stabbed at her pasta. 

Seulgi shoved a few more forkfuls into her mouth before continuing. “I know you’re taking it pretty hard, and I’m gonna be straight with you, but if you’re expecting to get back with her at some point, how are you gonna do that if you’re still not hearing her?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean,” Seulgi said, wiping the pasta sauce that made it onto her cheek. “She told you to take time and figure out how to be what someone else needs.” 

“I feel like I do that every day of my life though. With strangers, with professors, friends. With you, it’s easy because I don’t have to try so hard.” Seungwan slumped against the back of the chair. It seemed like no matter what she did, or who she presented herself as to other people there would always be some expectation she just couldn’t match. That sick feeling was coming back again to plague her. 

“I’m offended by that but I’ll let it go because you’re struggling.” Seulgi set aside her now clean plate and set Seungwan with a hardened brow of conviction. “When it comes to love, I don’t care what anyone says, it’s different. The situation changes and the dynamic becomes more delicate and intimate.” Seulgi continued her rant as she got up to get water for the both of them. “It takes more work. A different kind of work, that isn’t necessarily a step above friendship but it calls for a certain kind of care that you can’t extend to just anyone. It’s almost like those kid puzzles with the shapes, there isn’t a universal polymorphic shape out there that’s just right for everyone. Everyone’s block is different.” 

Seungwan took the offered glass and held onto its cool surface. Some of what Seulgi said, though she got lost in the puzzle bit, was right. And if Seulgi started making sense, then that meant she really needed to drag herself out of the deep end. 

“Okay, so then what do I do? I guess I understand the whole thing about everyone having the right hole or whatever-” 

Seulgi snorted. 

“But how does that help me fix everything?  _ What  _ do I do?” 

The question had Seulgi stumped. She concentrated really hard before giving Seungwan the reprieve she was seeking. “Nothing?” 

“Nothing.” 

Seulgi’s phone vibrated, interrupting their love guru session. She looked at the notification with a shy smile that Seungwan was only a little grossed out by. “Yup. Nothing.” She said tuning back in. “That is, you don’t try to go back and fix anything, you move forward with that knowledge in mind. It’s all about intention and future action, Seungwan-ah. Not trying to Fix-It Felix things that can’t be helped.” 

Seulgi left her to ruminate on her advice declaring that Seungwan’s right brain needed extra alone time to work out the kinks of being human. In reality, she was leaving her to spend the night at a new fling’s but Seungwan appreciated the chance to be in solitude. It was a kind of solitude she hadn’t been extremely familiar with. Time spent thinking about who she was as Seungwan, the individual, and Seungwan in conjunction with the needs of others.

\--- 

**_Winter_ **

They don’t run into each other again until snow has just about masked any sign of the asphalt in the street and the concrete that makes up the sidewalks. 

Seungwan had been out buying strings for the guitar she impulse bought sometime around Christmas. In trying to build a sense of self that was based on her own interests and desires, she thought it would be therapeutic to pick up an old hobby. It would be easier to build upon parts of her she let go rather than start from scratch. She had someone at the small music store string it up for her as opposed to doing it herself and bunking the whole thing up. 

The music store was located in a plaza filled with other small businesses like a bakery owned by a couple who are good friends of her family, a tailor, and among many others, Seungwan’s personal favorite, a candle store. 

She hadn’t been in some time and seeing as her guitar business was all done, she made a pit stop before heading home. 

The first step into the store is always the most offensive. All the smells hit her at once demanding to be picked up by her senses. It takes a lot of sniffling and blinking away tears to get used to it. The scents eventually filter themselves in columns, each one waiting its turn to be acknowledged. 

There are quite a few people in the store, candle stores are always popular during the festive season. The faces could all be duplicates of each other for all Seungwan would notice, she’s too caught up in the feeling of comfort associated with good memories and simple times. 

She scans the aisles paying visits to scents she had never come across before and lingering around those she had been previously acquainted with. She wanted to take all of them home and light a new one every day but Seulgi has a sensitive nose so her feet take her to a familiar shelf that housed the most basic and less assertive candles. She liked them best anyway. 

As expected the exact candle she wants and refuses to leave the store without is on a shelf just out of her reach. She would just jump for it but she’d risk breaking a lot on her way back down. Or she could have an employee assist her but they’re all preoccupied and she finds it a bit embarrassing to be encumbered by her height at her age. 

Using all of her power she stretches as far as her arms allow and only just scrapes the glass holder. She stared up at the stubborn piece of decor, hexing whoever invented tall shelves when an arm brushed against her side while reaching to grab it for her. 

“I couldn’t watch you struggle with that anymore, it was starting to get sad.”

Rigor mortis seized up her every muscle, every rational thought, her quick wit. She stiffly turned around not sure why she expecting the face of the person that helped her to match the voice she could pick out in a crowd of screaming people. 

“Sooyoung, I- thank you.”

She wanted to take her in and explore all the ways Sooyoung looked amazing. From her hair that had grown a healthy inch or two, to the bolder fashion choices she seemed to be making. Seungwan could picture it. Sooyoung picking out and arranging outfits that wouldn’t work on anyone but her. She could garner from the folders and papers barely hidden behind the flap of the bag that hung off one of her shoulders that Sooyoung was still very involved in her journalism work. But it all just came back to the question of whether or not Sooyoung found her happiness. Seungwan didn’t want to assume by the way she glowed or the confident smile that had returned to her face. Her guesses and assumptions wouldn’t be far off. 

“Mhm,” Sooyoung nodded. “I thought Seulgi wasn’t a fan of candles?”

“She’s not, this one’s not so strong.”

Sooyoung took hold of the hand that had a dangerous, and a little sweaty, grip on the candle and brought it up to her nose. “Ah. So this is where you get it.” 

Seungwan lowered her hand but let Sooyoung decide when she would drop it. “Yeah. I thought I told you about this place?”

Sooyoung’s side bangs bounced against her temple as she shook her head. “Nope. You kept it a secret. And I’m not gonna lie, I still wouldn’t have known it existed if I hadn’t followed you in here.” 

“You followed me?” 

“I was leaving the market and well you know I’d follow that ass anywhere.”

Seungwan winced and blushed, igniting her with the most uncomfortable combination of reactions. 

“Too much?” Sooyoung asked. 

“A bit…”

“If it helps I may have also seen your face and wanted to say hi.”

Seungwan smiled though her discomfort wasn’t entirely abated. “Thank you. It does. And hi? It feels weird to ask how you are because it’s not like I never hear from you.” 

“Right. You can ask anyway and I’ll pretend it’s not awkward.” 

Seungwan chuckled. Sooyoung’s humor that had a tinge of bratty that breached the line of bitchy was deeply missed. “Well, how are you, Sooyoung?”

“Meh,” she replied with a shrug. 

Seungwan scrunched up her face and looked at her confused to high hell. “What do you mean ‘meh’”? 

“I mean, I’m in a chintzy candle store with my ex and I  _ should  _ be leaving because I have interview runs on fluff pieces that I  _ really  _ don’t wanna do. So ‘meh’ seems about right.” 

Seungwan’s chest tremored at Sooyoung’s direct and yet simultaneously indirect way of saying that she had felt affected by the breakup. Despite Seulgi’s help and her own inward digging and reformation, she couldn’t help but project the negative idea on Sooyoung being better off without her. But with Sooyoung hinting at her own discomfort under the guise of being silly, that notion is brought to a new dimension. Her perspective was being challenged. Not changed or overpowered, but challenged. The tension tightened in her lungs and the one thousand scents in the small room with poor insulation began to make her lightheaded. And maybe it was the dizziness working against fear and logic but she attempted to make one step forward. 

“Do you…want to go for street food when you’re done running around?” She scuffed her sneaker back and forth against the peeling carpet. 

Sooyoung left her hanging. She stood over Seungwan, for the first time her height was intimidating, silently regarding her for the longest breath that Seungwan had ever held. Her eight-year-old self would be proud of the new record. Maybe asking her out wasn’t the best idea, perhaps Sooyoung hadn’t had enough time to figure herself out and to discern if they were truly a match despite existing on complete opposite sides of the universe. Or maybe she was waiting for Seungwan to back out. She held onto that insanely hopeful thought. 

“You’re not busy?” She simply asked. It was unexpected. Seungwan thought she would be delivered a hard yes or no. But it seemed to gain an answer like that was contingent upon how she answered Sooyoung’s roundabout way of asking something more personal between the two of them. 

And she was busy. There were spring semester related things she could be getting a head start on. It would be her first trial at a teaching assistantship under Dr. Kwon and she needed to be as prepared as possible, ready for any hitch in plans. But it was also still winter vacation. And there really wasn’t much to be done. 

“Nope. Free as a jailbird,” she said cheesing. 

Surprise skittered across Sooyoung’s features. Seungwan took it as a win. “I don’t think that’s how the idiom goes but okay.” 

“‘Okay’ you’re fine with my eggcorn or ‘okay’ you want to go for food?” 

Sooyoung retreated toward the door only sparing a gesture of pretending to zip her lips shut. It felt like she was courting Sooyoung all over again. When they first met, Sooyoung was all snarky comments and playful mannerisms. They could’ve needed this as well. Not only was it necessary to figure out how each of them stands in their future but also what set the stage for the past to begin. What were the elements that made up that initial attraction that went neglected in the passage of time and was lost to comfortability in miscommunication?

While her candles (she couldn’t leave with just one) were being delicately wrapped and bagged, she received a text from Sooyoung.

_ I’ll be downstairs at like 8:30ish? _

Seungwan expected her at nine. She thanked the cashier and returned to her apartment. It appeared to be empty when she got in so she kicked off her shoes and went about mundanity to keep her body busy while her mind reeled. She was being afforded a chance to make it all better. She could erase every inconsiderate thing she’d ever done and they could go back to...well she couldn’t exactly pinpoint what their relationship was. But it didn’t matter, all that would be mod podged over. Seulgi’s door opening disrupted her thoughts and a meek Joohyun poked her head around the wall that separated the hallway and the living room. “Oh, Seungwan. Hi, Seulgi gave me the key code and told me to wait around.” 

Seungwan dismissed the trepidation in Joohyun’s voice with an over-enthusiastic shake of her head. “No worries. You’re always welcome here. You might as well move in and replace Seulgi, ahah.”  _ Reel it in,  _ she chastised herself. 

Joohyun nodded and awkwardly stood in the walkway following Seungwan’s movements as she went back to tidying up. Seungwan easily fell back into her mind even with Joohyun’s presence idling in her peripheral. Before she could even stop her or notice her moving, Joohyun began to work alongside her. She took to straightening up the bookshelf while Seungwan dusted off the furniture. 

They shared a love for cleaning apparently and it was nice for Seungwan to know someone that also deeply understood the calm that comes with being able to get your hands on things in disarray and put them back where they belong. She laughed to herself at a thought that quickly flew through one ear and out the other. 

Joohyun put down the last of the throw pillows she had been fluffing. “What’s funny?” 

“Hm? Oh. Nothing, I was just thinking about someone I’m meeting up with later.” The rather neutral explanation didn’t sit right with Joohyun seeing as it was paired with a painful attempt at a nonchalant smile. 

“A good meetup or a 'blink twice if you need an escape route' meetup?” Joohyun probed. 

“I...am not too sure.”

Joohyun dropped the window cleaner. “What?!” 

Seungwan quickly saved the poor excuse for humor. “Kidding! Kidding. It’s Sooyoung I’m seeing.”

“And that’s funny?” 

It was kind of cute how Joohyun seemed untouched by the very things that bring most people great pain. Seungwan was a little envious of how easy it all seemed for Joohyun. 

“No, I was just thinking it’s funny how we barely know each other but it was so easy to fall in tune with one another but it took one night of crying and a lot of confusion for my relationship of almost two years to fall apart.” She almost laughed again at how it sounded like fodder for some cheesy teen comedy but then again there isn’t a non-corny way to deal with emotions because emotions in their very nature, she finds, are uncomfortable to deal with. 

“Oh, I see.” Joohyun’s tone indicated that she knew a little more than Seungwan was offering and the strange way she was wiping an already clean spot on the balcony door over and over didn't help. Seungwan was a little burnt out on taking advice from people. It seemed as if these days the only conversations she has are either with cashiers or with people trying to make her feel less shitty so she could be a more productive person in other people’s lives. 

“Alright, what did Seulgi tell you.” 

It was like a sleeper agent waiting for the code word to wake them into action. “She only scratched the surface!” Like an excited puppy dog, she bounced over to Seungwan and sat her down in one of the chairs at the table. Seungwan was seriously considering throwing the thing out herself because it was only ever used for people to knock her down a peg. 

“Seungwan, I know it’s not my place.”  _ But...  _ Seungwan thought. “...But, you seem to really not like yourself.” 

How did she get that from only scratching the surface? She needs to have a very lengthy text conversation with Seulgi about boundaries and personal information. “I really don’t know how to respond to that.” 

“You don’t yet.” Joohyun played with the thumb ring on Seungwan’s finger. “Like you just said. It happened all at once or it felt like it happened all at once-”

“No, it definitely happened all at once. I mean I kind of guessed it was coming but I didn’t think it actually would.” 

“See that’s the opposite end of the self-fulfilling prophecy. You thought it would happen because you would ruin it and as time went on you only saw your own flaws as the reason why and not Sooyoung’s problems.”

“I don’t see the difference.” 

Joohyun grasped at Seungwan’s forearms, her grip was slightly shaky and the look in her eye sort of gave Seungwan the creeps. “That’s the issue. Your insecurities are blinding you.” She followed her statement with a single finger moving like a platform between her pupils. Where did the quiet and off-putting Joohyun go because Seungwan wished she would return so she could be excused from this encounter. 

“Okay…” Seungwan lowered Joohyun’s finger from her line of view. She placed the hand on the table and slowly got out of her chair. “I hate to dine and dash, thank you for the advice by the way, but I need to go get ready.” 

“I thought you weren’t meeting up until later?” 

“Uh-huh!” Seungwan shouted already one foot in her room. She closed the door behind her and puffed out air to the empty space. She heard Seulgi’s door close shortly after and decided to just collapse on her bed until the very last minute before she presumed Sooyoung would show up. She was happy to finally have a moment to herself. 

Whatever advice Joohuyun was trying to impart upon her was too hefty and confusing to deal with. What did it even mean to be on the other end of the self-fulfilling prophecy spectrum? Wouldn’t that be contradictory to the concept itself? Joohyun was kind of wacky so maybe she shouldn’t take her words to heart. Seulgi must also be a closet wackjob if she can tolerate that. 

Staring at her ceiling only gave her the platform to boost the winding thoughts to the forefront of her mind and if she was going out with Sooyoung she really didn’t need to be in a bad headspace if she wanted to make a good impression. She had a mental sit down with her psyche and asked if they could postpone the self-deprecating meeting to a later date. It took a lot of bargaining and shifting of schedules but they eventually came to an agreement. She pushed herself up, her short legs almost dangling over the edge of her mattress. The ceiling light reflected off the gloss of Seungwan’s guitar body and it caught her eye. She checked the time. Only a few more hours until Sooyoung would inevitably text or call to say that she’s outside and Seungwan would have to face the music. No pun intended. 

She tinkered around playing random melodies, whatever came into her mind belonging to nothing for an inscrutable amount of time. She allowed her fingers to pluck as they pleased, let the stream of her mind guide them as they played on the steel strings. She was going around in circles with a certain tune, the chords sounding familiar. She began to hum along, hoping it would jog her memory. 

“You’re such a tenderhearted person…” a few of the words finally came to her. She went over the line repeatedly tripping over the chords trying to remember the rest even breaking what she could recall syllable by syllable and chord by chord, but all she could come up with was what she guessed were parts of the chorus. “I want to cry for you, I want to hurt instead of you…” She played around a bit more to get her hands used to the habit again (whoever said re-learning instrumental skills was like riding a bike told a fat whopper) but soon her joints grew tired and she could feel a couple of blisters coming on. She leaned the guitar against the frame of her bed and left her room to get water. When she came back her phone vibrated with the 2-minute reminder of a text from Sooyoung. She quickly grabbed the first jacket she could find and ran out the door, shoes in hand. 

Sooyoung of course teased her about her tardiness. And the fact that she was standing in barely melted snow in just her ankle socks. It was just an appetizer to the barrage of side comments thrown at her all night while they were enjoying themselves. They caught each other up with what they didn’t already know and talked about things that would happen in their lives in the near future. Seungwan joked and was made a playful joke of. Sooyoung seemed to be doing so well. That bright smile, the one that Sooyoung uses her whole body to express was on full display but the sweet smile, the one that seemed like a natural part of her because it was there so often is what Seungwan was looking for. She had yet to see it while they were eating which was understandable but she was anxious for it to make an appearance. It would give her all the answers to the questions she so badly wanted to ask but wasn’t sure if she was worthy of the answers. 

It was freezing out but Sooyoung wasn’t quite ready to go back to her apartment yet. Seungwan suggested that they walk to a nearby park and back just to tire her out. Not because she wanted to spend as much time as possible with Sooyoung though if that were the case it shouldn’t be shameful. She was still very much in love with Sooyoung so she shouldn’t criticize herself for wanting to be around her. 

“I still think it’s so weird that someone managed to tie Seulgi down.” 

Seungwan's eyes nearly inflated clean off her face with how wide they blew up. “I know! And it was such a weird pairing at first because Joohyun was all tight lips and curt greetings and I couldn’t wrap my head around their energies matching in any way.” She fell into silence for a moment and rubbed her chin, thoughtfully. “Although, the wacky intervention she put me through earlier kind of makes it seem...right, now that I think about it.” 

“What kind of intervention?” Sooyoung asked with a worried furrow of her eyebrows. 

Cold sweat clammed up the palms of her hands. “Um. Nothing. I was just...she just wanted to talk about something.” 

Sooyoung looked at her suspiciously while steering their walk in the direction of a bench in the middle of the park. “Something meaning…” 

“Well, I guess now’s a good time as any” Seungwan said to herself, mentally preparing for the doom to come. She shoved her small hands in the even smaller pockets of her jacket. “You- or uh us, actually. Mostly me and my dumb head.” She covered up the jab with a small laugh but it didn’t go over well because when she looked up at Sooyoung waiting for her response she caught the remnants of frustration on her face before it relaxed into something more neutral. 

Seungwan jumped up on the tabletop and Sooyoung scooted somewhat next to her. They looked like a funny pair. Seungwan in her jean jacket and Vans, Sooyoung in her pristine wool pea coat and thigh-high boots. Granted they were coming from completely different places but to the unknowing eye, it just looked like a funky match. 

“Sooo, are you gonna ask me what we talked about.” 

Sooyoung let out an exaggerated sigh. “No. I’m actually practicing this thing where I don’t pry into people’s lives,” she said, her intonation following that of asking a question. Seungwan grunted, matching her mocking tone. “I was just waiting for you to tell me.” 

“Well, Sooyoung. If you  _ must  _ know-”

“I literally did not ask.” 

“If you must know, I told her that us taking time apart was because I am an awful girlfriend. And then she started saying some philosophical nonsense about how I see something, I don’t know honestly I was only half-listening.” 

Sooyoung laughed dryly, shaking her head. 

“What?”

“All these months and it still hasn’t clicked for you, huh?” 

“What hasn’t clicked?” 

“Our taking a break wasn’t neither your fault nor mine, it was both of ours and yet neither at the same time.” 

“Oh no, not you getting philosophical too.” 

Sooyoung stood abruptly from her seat and moved to stand directly in front of Seungwan. Their light joking conversation had picked up heat and animosity before Seungwan’s eyelids could even meet together for a blink. 

“Seungwan, you’re being dismissive. Again.”

“Again?” 

“Yes. Again. The night of the party, you came to me with something I did that had been hurting you. I tried to reassure you, but you were dismissive. I brushed it off.” She began counting off on her fingers. “The next morning, you brought it up again. I tried to tell you, that I was hearing you. I understood that you needed to be loved a certain way, you needed us to work a certain way. But it’s hard for me to get there and give you want. But I tried- I  _ was  _ trying. But you were dismissive  _ again _ . And I brushed it off because you promised you would try, too. And every day after that, was me waking up to brush it off.” Seungwan didn’t even attempt to get a word in. It was the first since she had known Sooyoung that she had heard her release so much pent up anger and resentment. At least to someone she loved. She’s seen it being thrown at or about someone that wasn’t as important to her. This  _ is  _ what she asked for but being on this end of the frustration hurt a lot more than Seungwan expected. 

“Do you even- did you consider how long  _ I  _ felt unloved for? But I just buried it for your sake because that’s not how you express yourself. And that’s fine. But going that long with it unacknowledged would’ve driven someone weaker in will to do something unforgivable.” 

When it seemed like Sooyoung was angered out, Seungwan finally spoke up. “You’re right. And I would have deserved that-” 

“No, no you wouldn’t have.” She held onto the lapels of Seungwan’s jacket. “No one deserves that, Seungwan. We didn’t break up because we couldn’t love each other right. It’s what grew out of that, the lack of communication, and the dismissiveness. We have different ideas of what balance means with love and we needed time apart to figure that out for ourselves.” 

It was like their roles from that night we were reversed. Seungwan couldn’t handle the upfront exposure happening so quickly and so relentlessly. She was outside yet she felt like she needed air. Her chest was tightening and her mind was going a million miles per second. There was so much for her to say but it all seared against her tongue like pop rocks, making her scared to part her lips and let any of it out. She wondered, even in all the inner turmoil, if this was what Sooyoung had been feeling throughout their entire relationship. 

She must’ve seen Seungwan’s slow descent into madness dripping down her temples, manifested as beads of sweat because she backed off. “I’m gonna go take a minute to cool down.” 

With Sooyoung not in front of her, Seungwan’s heart slowed its pace. She closes her eyes, resting her head against her knees. She bitterly thinks for a moment that maybe Sooyoung had been right to keep all that to herself because it was a lot to take in. Scratching the surface had to be the phrase of the day because, from the sound of it, there was much more to unpack and resolve. For both of them. Relating to their relationship and exacerbated by their relationship. She moved to lay down on her back and she counted the stars to slow down everything around her. 

Eventually, after the fourth time she had counted to 70, Sooyoung came back from wherever she walked off to. She sat down next to Seungwan’s head and followed her eyes to look up at the sky as well. “I’m sorry,” she said after a beat. “For blowing up like that. I shouldn’t have come at you that way.” 

“Okay. It’s good you got it out though. What was it Shrek said?” 

Sooyoung took the humorous peace offering. “Better out than in?”

“I was actually talking about the bit about layers but that works too.” 

They shared a laugh as the winter chill replaced the fire from their encounter. She really loved listening to Sooyoung laugh. It was one of those rare ones where the person actually sounds like they’re going “ha ha ha” but when she’s really laughing she kind of sounds like she's in pain which made whatever the punchline was, all the more hilarious. Thinking about Sooyoung’s laugh made Seungwan’s mind strip her down to the bare essentials. Made her think about what Sooyoung preserved just her, the things that made it all worth it. It was like wine in her veins pumping all throughout her chest. 

“It’s getting late,” Sooyoung pointed out in a low voice. “I should probably get you home before Seulgi starts to worry. Oh, that is the strangest thing that’s ever come out of this mouth.” 

“It’s like when kids get all grown up and eventually have to take care of senile parents.” 

Sooyoung giggled and pulled Seungwan up by the wrists. They had exhausted any more topics to talk about or dance around so the walk back was done in silence. Sooyoung walked her all the way upstairs to her door. Although they didn’t feel the need to converse, Sooyoung nervously fidgeted the entire way back as if there was something she was dying to get out. 

“I’m glad we got to do this.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Me too…” 

Seungwan awkwardly saluted and turned to type the keycode in, she got two numbers down before Sooyoung, who had yet to leave, spoke up. 

“Wait, Seungwan.” 

She heard shuffling on the other side of the door but decided to ignore it. She swiveled back around to Sooyoung. “Yes?” 

“Can I…” Sooyoung played with the cuffs of her coat as her ears turned a pale pink. “I’m a grown woman I should be able to ask this.” Seungwan assumed she was talking to herself. “Can we hug? Is it too soon?” She forced her words out in one breath. 

“My, my” she replied. “I should take you to parks more often.” 

Sooyoung rolled her eyes and yanked her into an embrace. Typically, she would be indifferent to physical forms of affection but this time was unlike all the others. 

It felt like a dream and a memory permanent pressed into one. She melted into the hug, her body straining to grab onto the fleeting sensation of being at home in Sooyoung’s embrace like before. Though the love she was able to recall, albeit true, was habitual without a center. Sooyoung’s hugs had meant something different back then, they were mere acts to show the smallest percentage of what she felt. To Sooyoung, it was one of the few ways she felt satisfactory to relay the message of forever to Seungwan. The message fell on mostly unwilling ears then, very few times did it manage to break through, but hopefully, now it would at least buzz about until Seungwan got around to unraveling it and storing it somewhere safe. 

Sooyoung spoke into the top of Seungwan’s head, sending a ripple of vibrations down her spine. “I don’t think you understand how much I’ve missed hugging you.” Seungwan let herself be pulled deeper into Sooyoung’s shoulder with enough urgency that she was almost standing on the tips of her sneakers. Sooyoung’s sweater smelled of clean sheets with a hint of sage. 

She was pretty sure Seulgi was standing on the other side of the door probably sharing the peephole with her girlfriend but she pushed the thought away in favor of the warmth emanating from Sooyoung’s chest like her love had taken on tangible form. “I’m sorry.” 

Sooyoung softly patted down the back of her head. “I know. But for what? I know you feel like you need to say it, even if it isn’t something I agree with.” 

Oh great, as she was about to open her mouth, she realized that Joohyun had actually been onto something. “I saw you hurting and thought I was helping but I wasn’t. I couldn’t be what you needed.” 

Sooyoung was silent though behind her eyelids Seungwan could just picture the look of disapproval etched onto her face. “Okay. And I’m sorry you feel that way. You did what you knew how, and that’s all I can really ask of you. I get that now.” 

They felt uncertain but good. Seungwan couldn’t totally get rid of inhibition and worry but she felt better about working on it. And she wasn’t exactly sure why or how Sooyoung felt at fault but she could at least recognize that it was, again, those insecurities blocking that part of her brain but with the knowledge that they’re both on better ground to release upon each other the love they need and the love they deserve, it was less daunting to slowly chip away at them. 

“Can I see you sometime soon?” 

“Of course, I can even bring you lunch every now and then.” Sooyoung slipped a bold hand over her left back pocket, leaving a friendly tap. “How else are you gonna impress those new students of yours.” 

Seungwan balled up the tail of Sooyoung’s sweater in her hands. “God, you’re gross.” 

“I think we should let them decide that.” 

**_\---_ **

**_Sometime in Spring pt.2_ **

Seungwan wakes the next morning to the smell of cooked spam tunneling in from the cracked door. She groaned as she stretched, the puffiness of her eyes made it a bit difficult to see but she assumed the space next to her was vacant. Her body ached, the few hours of sleep she got weren’t enough to ward off the soreness from the night before. 

They didn’t get the opportunity to do much talking before or after. With Seungwan’s incoherent apologies and her desideratum to succumb to Sooyoung’s beckoning 

She walks up behind her in the kitchen and lays a sleep-ridden cheek on Sooyoung’s shoulder. 

“Hiii…” 

Sooyoung gave her a sly smile before returning her greeting. Seungwan wasn’t really sure if they needed to re-open the topic of how she's been inconsiderate and oblivious. She held her close, a silent questioning. 

Sooyoung took her eyes off the cooking eggs to glance back at her. “We’re good, baby.” She turned back to unleash an attack on the food with her wooden spoon. She was making Seungwan’s favorite: spam, rice, and eggs. It was simple but Seungwan preferred dishes that weren’t overly complicated, there’s also a metaphor in there somewhere but that, too, is more complicated to place and not really worth the effort. 

They sit at the table focused too much on restoring their energy to talk. It had been a while since she was last able to just eat and let her mind sit blank. Some people may enjoy having the free time to think about nonsensical things as a way to relax the neurons in their head but Seungwan simply turned her brain completely off. Just pure white noise and isolation going on in her mind and it was like a mental projection of paid vacation being spent in a place where the weather never gets too hot and teeters on the line of being too cold. Where she could sleep for hours without worry. She could even eat in bed and not care about the crumbs. And Sooyoung would be there to sweep them onto the floor when they piled up to a noticeable point. She and Sooyoung could spend their days experimenting with teas, failing at baking pies, they could go swimming in the evening or painting at dawn. It didn’t really matter. Seungwan would have no fears, no insecurities, the words "tremble" and "panic" would only be associated with nights that the electricity went out and they would have no way to heat their little fantasy apartment. But they would have each other to keep warm. 

But it wasn’t only Seungwan that had concerns and problems. Sooyoung clearly had them too. She wondered if they would follow her into the fantasy world that she fashioned in her mind. That was when she realized that even in reality, which was riddled with strife, and bills, and deadlines and social conventions, they still had each other to keep warm when everything became muddled with the cold and monotonous. 

“Sooyoung,” her voice sounded hollow in the quiet morning. 

She hummed in acknowledgment, still trying to clean the food on her plate. 

“Do you wanna tell me what you meant last night? When you said it was hard to speak up sometimes.” 

The scraping against her plate halted for a beat but picked back up, Sooyoung still not looking up at Seungwan. She clears her throat. “It’s just hard. You get it. Sometimes when you want to say something it just gets caught in your throat.” 

Seungwan looked up at the ceiling while trying to draw conclusions from what little Sooyoung gave her. “Right...I get it for random moments or things that pass but we’re talking about something else here, aren’t we?” 

“Does this not apply to things that pass?” 

Seungwan blew air out of her mouth and gave a confounded shrug. “Maybe. I could say yes if I knew what ‘this’ meant. Don’t you think it’d be good to get it all out?” She ducked to try to catch Sooyoung’s eyes, sparing a glance to the plate that most definitely has some irreparable scratches on its face now. 

“I don’t know, it’s not that big of a deal. Not something we really need to discuss anyway.” 

Seungwan laughed dryly, “I beg to differ. You seem pretty upset, all the more reason to just lay it out so we can work through it. Communication is important, Sooyoung.” 

She stopped scraping the plate. “I know that-” 

“Then let’s talk about it.” 

“Can you just- it’s not that easy to-” 

“What exactly isn’t easy, let's start there then we can work it out. And then we can go back to normal.” 

“Seungwan, please.”

She gets stuck on the next insistence that was due to leave her mouth. Seungwan’s never seen this level of frustration caked on Sooyoung’s face, she figures it’s the manifestation of months worth of a hardened mouth keeping away Sooyoung’s misgivings. 

“This,” Sooyoung swallows before she continues. “This is why I don’t say anything.” 

“It’s my fault?” 

Sooyoung fixes her with a short-lived glare. “No not you particularly. Just...how do I say this...in essence.” 

Seungwan watches her as she attempts to gather the rest of her thoughts in the cracks of the thrifted dining room table that was way too big to be randomly dropped in their living room. Seungwan thinks of how it’s probably Sooyoung’s favorite spot in the entire apartment, apart from their bed. 

“It’s how people- not just you - get so fixated on doing everything all at once. It’s overwhelming.”

The table was the last thing to be added to their tiny home. “I don’t think I understand how we get from things being overwhelming to you resenting me.” 

“I don’t resent you. I told you that. I just can’t match the way you deal with things.”

“So you’d rather not deal with them at all?”

“Who says I’m not dealing with it?” 

Seungwan gestures to the table, the meal they weren’t able to finish, and very abstractly the night before. Sooyoung shrugs, already looking to just pacify the tension and move on. Although Seungwan may not think herself deserving of an explanation, she presses her on it. She pushes the plate out of the way and places her hands on top of Sooyoung’s. Like muscle memory they flip over, edges of fingers grasping onto each other. 

“What is it you can’t say, Sooyoung?”

Once again the words sound like they got caught in a stack of needles hidden in her throat. Sooyoung strains for a minute before giving up and leaving the table. Seungwan watches her disappear into their room and sighs. She takes their plates to the sink, accepting that they’ll never move past it. She starts to give weight to the thought that she might have to live without Sooyoung. She doesn’t want to give any validity to the worst but that’s where Sooyoung leaves her: thinking that this one little argument will be left unresolved and it will eventually drive a deep ocean trench between them.

She turns off the faucet and dries off her hands as Sooyoung re-enters almost tip-toeing into the room. She holds something in one of her hands very loosely as if it doesn’t belong to her. A notebook Seungwan realizes once she’s closer. “What’s this?” 

“I’m- you wanted me to...so here. Just take it.” 

Seungwan gives her a strange look before taking the notebook from her limp hand. Once it’s out of her grasp Sooyoung snatches the hand back like it was killing her to even hold it in the first place. She follows behind Seungwan to the couch and barely gives her any room. She watches closely as Seungwan opens it to a random page. 

At first, it just seems like words scattered about the page without any purpose. There are some words she recognizes as lyrics in the margins. She skips a few pages. The next one she lands on is more uniform. Blocks of fragments and afterthoughts strung together containing hardly any pronouns. The more she follows the lines, the harder it gets to read not for illegibility but because they seem to be demanding her to do something she can’t quite figure out. 

“This is…” 

She feels Sooyoung wince moreso than sees it. “Don’t make me say it.” 

Seungwan goes through the entries. Sometimes there’s a handful on one day then days go by until another is added to the collection. 

“So you’ve been submitting these?”

“God, no. It was just that one time. But it helps. When I can’t…” 

“When you can’t talk to me,” Seungwan finishes going back to take a look at some of the ones she’s already seen trying to create a mental timeline that ran parallel to her own. Sooyoung smiles at the use of “can’t” and nods. Seungwan takes it as a feeling of affirmation.

She closes the notebook, leaving it in her lap. “So what now? Do we just go about this business as usual?” It seems insensitive to ask and maybe Sooyoung thinks the same as she taps impatiently on the wood. “With you just silently sacrificing and me just taking and demanding?”

Sooyoung blinks. “I think maybe you misunderstood.” 

“Then what is it you need me to do?” 

Seungwan can feel Sooyoung’s intent to search her face, trying to see past what sits in front of her. 

“Turn around.” 

The sudden command comes at her filling her body with exasperation. “What?” 

“Just. Turn around.” 

Seungwan does as she’s told. A breeze filters in through the partially open balcony door. She feels Sooyoung wrap around her and despite herself melts a little as she’s pulled in like a puzzle piece to Sooyoung’s front. There’s barely enough room for both of them but Sooyoung’s holding on tight enough so that she doesn’t fall over the edge. Their bodies settle together and Sooyoung sighs into her ear the same time the breeze picks up again, the two contradicting temperatures mildly comforting. 

“Do you feel how easy this is? Even if I could tell you how I feel, it’ll never be as easy as this. It’ll never be as healing.” 

The words “always” and “permanence” scribbled and smudged across beige paper flash across Seungwan’s mind. The morning wind had whisked away her lingering guilt. “But, Sooyoung. That’s not healthy. You have to talk-”

“I know.” She squeezes her with the urgency she forced out. “I know. And I will. Eventually. But if you could just give me this- continue giving me this- I can get there.” 

Seungwan can’t deny that even in all the ways they counter each other, each day could repeat itself over and over but it all gets a little better when Sooyoung crawls into bed at an ungodly hour to pull Seungwan into a sleeping embrace. Where Seungwan preferred to go about things with her hands and love with more words than her mind could manage, Sooyoung was eager to listen and give her love in the tenderness of physicality. 

These ways of loving each other were prominent in just the everyday walk of life. When things got hard, Seungwan could talk her way out of it, solutions came easier that way. She doesn’t think she’ll ever fully understand Sooyoung’s aversion to verbalization. 

“So don’t feel like I’m just enduring to make you feel better. And don’t think it’s all on you.” 

Seungwan was still apprehensive. Instead of a reply, she shifts around to lay her head against Sooyoung’s chest. The constant of her heartbeat whispered something reassuring to her. That only with time and patience, they would get to a place where they’re better for each other. With each leading beat, followed by a second one she had made-up in her mind that though today or perhaps tomorrow or the next day she may feel inadequate there would always be another day soon after that gives her another chance to feel otherwise. She never thought her fantasy world could actually become a part of their shared reality. 

They managed to sleep through the rest of the day. Sooyoung exhausted from verbalizing more of her inner thoughts than she ever had with Seungwan and the latter simply just tired from running on a hundred every single day. 

When the week started again and the cuddles became fewer, they still had the night. And on inconsistent mornings when Seungwan would wake up just as the sun ventured out to resume its place in the sky, she would find out of place, lone folded sheets of beige paper on their little window sill addressed to no one in particular. She took those little notes and kept them safe and not too far out of reach, a reminder that there was always daybreak. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> if you managed to get through that messiness, I hope it was enjoyable lol. if you see this post and were expecting the joygi fic I sWEAR it's still coming. the first chapter or two will be up really soon!! thank u very much for reading and anticipating!!


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